BRENDA HARTILL Artist
Brenda Hartill is an artist/printmaker. Her work explores the texture, pattern and light of the landscape, and over the past ten years has ranged from finely drawn figurative works to bold, heavily embossed abstract images. She is most interested in the strong light and shadow of southern Europe, as well as New Zealand, and the cityscape of London.
Her most recent work develops her strong standing "elements" theme which explores the sculptural possibilities of collagraph and etching, using the elements of the landscape, weather, storms, fierce sunshine and shadow, arid rock erosion and minerals, as the basis for icon-like images. Over the past few years her palette has been subtle and diffuses, emphasizing the three dimensional qualities of her prints, but she is now employing much more strong and vibrant colour. Her recent "Stormlands" and "Shadowlands" plaster and Carborundum collagraphs have led to a new series of "Elemental Icons" combining etching with collagraph.
Brenda Hartill has over 250 prints in her portfolio, and is a fellow if the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers. She makes the plates and produces all the prints in her workshop in central London, and in her studio in the mountains of Andalucia in Southern Spain. She often shows at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Royal Society of Painter Printmaker members shows, the International Print Exhibition, and in over sixty galleries worldwide.
Born in London she emigrated to New Zealand with her parents, and returned to England on a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council scholarship to study at the Central School of Art and Design. She became involved in theatre design, and after a period lecturing in university theatre in the USA she returned to London to take up a British Arts Council award. She worked for a period at the National Theatre at the Young Vic, and then as a freelance theatre designer including shows for the National Theatre at the Old Vic, the RSC, London's West End (Criterian Theatre), Traverse Theatre Edinburgh, Theatre Royal York and the Birmingham Rep. After the birth of her two children she changed direction and took up printmaking, setting up her own studio in London in 1984.
